Are There Green Data Centers In The UK?

Data centres have been on the increase they now consume more than 3-5 percent of the world’s power. With the ever-growing demand for data storage, this number is set to go even higher by next year. These massive data storage gadgets and equipment require megastructures to house them and millions of megawatts to keep them cool and functioning well. They have a huge carbon footprint. The exploding demands of online services, data storage and cloud computing will continue to expand and is not about to slow down anytime soon. This has created great concern around the world and created a need to have better and more efficient data centres that will operate more on renewable energy. Thus the name Green Data Centers was born.

Are There Green Data Centers In The UK?

With the Paris Climate Agreement placing energy usage at the top of the public and government agenda, those with large datacentres are coming under pressure to be more efficient. You will probably not be surprised to learn that 40%- 50% of the data centres are in Europe and the majority of these are located in the UK. So to the question ‘ Are there green data centers in the Uk? J Yes. Yes, there are. In Central London, Manchester and a few other cities in the Uk and Europe. Awesome Earth Conscious companies are finding ways to reduce their carbon footprint with innovative, cost-effective ways, using renewable energy. One such company that is Network Hosting started in 2005 and based in the Uk. They boost of 7 state of the art, clean green Data Centres in 3 countries.

As at this moment, the available green centres are but a drop in a very large ocean. The impact therefore of these companies is not yet felt. The good news is, that there is good will and a plan for more companies to make their data centres greener and to run on renewable energy, to reduce the reliance on electricity and fossil fuels.

What Can We Expect In The Coming Years?

Even more good news here. The Paris Climate Agreement brought to light the seriousness of the negative impact that data centres have on the environment. And making Energy Usage a priority item on Government and Public Policy agenda means that companies that have large data centres now are under pressure to restructure and make these centres more efficient. With the Paris Climate Agreement placing energy usage at the top of the public and government agenda, those with large datacentres are coming under pressure to be more efficient.”

Making More Data Centres Green – The Challenge Ahead

The challenge ahead for companies lies in finding a Clean, Renewable and Efficient Energy Source. The energy needed to run a data centre is for powering the servers and for cooling the system. 90% of the power used is for this purpose. That means that these companies are paying in the billions for running the data centres. A change in power source will greatly benefit the companies. It will reduce their power bill and maintenance cost. Some companies have been testing and innovating different ways to solve this challenge. In Europe in countries like Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland where one data centre is built under a mountain. All these countries have the advantage of the weather. They are cold throughout most of the year, the Uk, however, cannot rely on the weather and will have to design a system that is not dependant on the weather. All this takes time and money. But again, there is goodwill from the big mega companies and they will find clean, green energy to run their data centres.